5.  The applicant was born in 1972 and lives in Istanbul.
6.  On 25 November 1997 the applicant was taken into police custody at the İstanbul Security Headquarters, where he was held until 2 December 1997 and questioned regarding his alleged involvement in a terrorist organisation.
7.  On 2 December 1997 the applicant and nine other detainees were examined by a forensic doctor who noted a 1-cm-long crusted scar on the lower part of the applicant’s left leg and a 2‑-cm‑-wide lesion surrounding his lower left eyelid.
8.  In statements made before the State Security Court on 1 December 1997 and before the Fatih Public Prosecutor on 10 March 1998, the applicant complained about having been subjected to torture by the police officers while in custody. He said, in particular, that he had been subjected to various forms of pressure: he had been beaten and his testicles had been squeezed. He added that he might be able to recognise the perpetrators.
9.  On 17 April 1998 the Istanbul Public Prosecutor filed a bill of indictment and charged four police officers (S.A., M.C., E.M. and N.C.) with ill-treating the applicant and three other detainees.
10.  On 25 June 1998 the applicant joined the proceedings as a civil party.
11.  During hearings before the Istanbul Assize Court, the accused police officers claimed that the applicant had shown resistance at the time of his arrest, which explained the marks found on his body. Consequently, at the hearing held on 29 June 2000 the applicant requested a consultation with the Forensic Medicine Institute in order to determine the exact cause of the marks on his body.
12.  In its report issued on 19 December 2001, the Forensic Medicine Institute concluded that the crusted scar on the applicant’s leg could have been around seven days old at the time he was examined by the forensic doctor on 2 December 1997 whereas the purple lesion under his left eye could have occurred three to four days previously. The report further stated that the lesions under the eye could have been caused by the application of a hard substance directly to the eye or the person’s hitting his eye or having his head forced against a solid and dented surface. The report added that it was not medically possible to identify which of the three reasons was the exact cause.
13.  On 20 June 2003 the Istanbul Assize Court held that, on the basis of the evidence in the case file, the complainants had been subjected to ill‑treatment which fell under Article 243 of the Criminal Code. Accordingly, the police officers had inflicted this treatment intentionally in order to extract confessions. Referring, inter alia, to the findings in the medical reports, the court sentenced as charged M.C. and S.A., who had previously been identified by the applicant during the hearings, to one year’s imprisonment and acquitted E.M. and N.C. due to lack of evidence.
14.  Both parties appealed. On 29 March 2005 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment in respect of M.C. and S.A. on the ground of the insufficiency of the investigation. The court noted in particular that the medical reports of the complainants, which had been issued when they were taken into police custody, and their statements taken there, were absent from the case file.
15.  The case was remitted to the Istanbul Assize Court, which decided on 24 June 2006 to discontinue the proceedings as the prosecution had become time-barred in the meantime.